Bill Gates has made a massive philanthropic gift to a foundation led by his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, in one of the largest public charitable transfers in recent years.
In 2024, the Microsoft co-founder Gates donated $7.88 billion to the Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation, which Melinda French Gates oversees, according to The New York Times. The donation comes three years after the high-profile divorce between Gates and French Gates.
The massive donation was revealed in a recent tax filing and ranks among the largest publicly recorded charitable gifts in history, according to the report. The filing also offers the first clear financial details of the 2021 divorce settlement between Gates and French Gates.
Once celebrated as one of the world’s most influential philanthropic duos, Bill and Melinda Gates announced their divorce in May 2021 after 27 years of marriage.
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In May 2024, Melinda French Gates officially stepped away from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, bringing an end to decades of joint work in global health, education, and poverty alleviation.
A year after the divorce, in late 2022, she launched the Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation, which focuses on promoting women’s rights, economic opportunity, and social equality.
The couple’s divorce came after reports surfaced about Bill Gates’ past relationship with a Microsoft employee. In 2019, the woman sent a letter to Microsoft’s board outlining an affair that allegedly began in 2000 and requested that Melinda Gates be informed.
Microsoft’s board looked into the allegations and later characterized the relationship as “inappropriate,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
Amid the ongoing investigation, Bill Gates stepped down from Microsoft’s board in March 2020, before the company reached a formal conclusion. He stated that he wanted to dedicate more time to his philanthropic work.